Thursday, August 17, 2006

Treat’em and Street’em

Layoffs, reorgs, heat waves, crime waves and well, PMS. Is it just me, or is the planet getting warmer? Oakland and Highland have gotten hot enough, somebody please turn up the air and the funding. Did you know Sheriff Plummer and Susan Murahishi the County Administrator “bump” into each other over at the Claremont Spa? Seriously, I read it in Bizwoman. Maybe I’ll pop over at lunch and explain the situation to them.

Have our leaders all left town in the interest of personal comfort and safety? What’s up? One of America’s most wanted got killed a block from the hospital in June, over 410 crimes around the hospital so far this year and we get every trauma in Oakland.

How have the County Supervisors responded? Well they want to close the Rehabilitation Hospital at Fairmont. Great that’s helpful. So lets say you get shot and you’re a paraplegic, once we stop the bleeding, who’s going get you a wheel chair and teach you to use it. What about a stroke, shall we send these patients home with a brochure? How about Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Stenosis and people who get joints replaced?

While San Francisco moves toward comprehensive care, chronic illness management, and prevention, Dave Kears and the County Supes who love him pushing for cost containment at its meanest. All the Medical Center needs is an emergency room and a couple of cots according to Dave. All you need is an emergency room- it’s Dave’s treat’em and street’em healthcare cost containment plan.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Highland saved a life in June, and continues to protect that life with the no-smoking outreach clinic, follow-up asthma treatment counseling and recheck bone density tests and chest rads. While it was the emergency room that treated my friend's severe bronchitis/pneumonia, it has been the ancillary services that have kept her from resuming the unhealthy habit of smoking. (Although, she does admit that the fear of ever having to spend several days in Highland is a very big incentive to not get sick again). Considering that Highland has everything from major trauma to significant despair and the wards can sometimes resemble an asylum meets St.Elsewhere, the work that the health care providers do at that facility borders on the miraculous. Too bad that the work of the Alameda County Supervisors doesn't. I would like to see a ballot proposition that would require all supes to spend a night a quarter in Highland as an observer. Hang out in one of the general adult admissions rooms where folks with respiratory distress share the 4 bed room with folks who stand up all night and talk incoherently, who stay in Highland, refusing to leave because she has no home to go to, or who suffer silently until a family member can arrive to translate. And find the nicest nurses and orderlies who are always polite and respectful and the diligent housekeepers who keep the room as spotless as they can.

It is so sad that the hospitals mission is to care for the downtrodden,etc,etc, We do a great job on a budget which is next to nothing. Kears and the rest of the Admin could care less about the community. So sad, so sad.